After The Crash
by Jellico
Summary: WHIB / What Happened In Between for Season 1, Episode 4 : "Crash Into You". Nathan suffers no consequences at all after turning his back on a hit and run, while Lucas suffers far more than he expected.


The moment Karen Roe made up her mind – stopped vacillating around noon and really, truly accepted that she had made her final decision – she occupied her time with one chore after another inside her café. Business was far slower than usual that Saturday afternoon with no sit-down customers coming in past three o'clock, but no matter. She dismissed the help and dusted each bookshelf in between handling each take-out order on her own. After that, she mopped the floors, scrubbed the countertops and steam-cleaned each coffee-pot. When those tasks too were done, she baked the next day's desserts to keep her hands busy.

More importantly, she kept her mind preoccupied. She refused to create a window through which Doubt might enter since she had fretted for almost a week already over how to discipline Lucas for his part in concealing Nathan's hit and run from the authorities. But her decision was made now and that was that. Lucas would forgive her eventually. God willing, he might even understand.

As he sauntered in half an hour before closing time, laughing alongside his Uncle Keith, Karen stilled her body at last and gave her son her sternest look from behind the front counter.

"Lucas Eugene Scott."

Right away, Luke stopped chuckling, although he couldn't completely stifle his amusement. He took in his mother's expression and gazed back at her with a saucy smile, his high spirits only slightly diminished. "Uh-oh. Hear that, Keith? When Mom says my full name like that I know she's finally decided on my punishment."

"I have."

Luke glanced behind at his uncle, who arched an eyebrow at him before quietly taking a seat at the counter. Keith was not grinning much any more. He obviously thought things were going to get serious, so Luke made an effort to do the same. He bit back the last of his smile, plunked his behind down on another stool, then leaned forward with expectation.

"Okay, Ma, lay on it me. It's about time actually, so whatever it is —"

"Go home."

Luke's head tipped back a little, his forehead creased in confusion. "Wait. Go ... home? Did you just tell me to leave and go home?"

Karen straightened her spine a little more and nodded once. "That's what I said, young man. Go home and wait for me."

Luke studied her askance but then shrugged and stood up, taking a hesitant step toward the door. "O-kay, if that's what you—"

"And by wait for me," Karen continued, "I mean I want you in your room ... ready for bed ... in the corner."

Lucas stopped in his tracks and his jaw fell open in stages. He turned back to face his mom, his stomach churning as his mind began to race.

Once upon a time, the northeast wedge in his bedroom had always been free of clutter at Karen's insistence, reserved as it was for punishment. Serious punishment actually. Punishment that called for major reflection after Lucas had messed up bad. Punishment that also involved him going to his mother after she had decided he had reflected long enough, where he bent facedown over her lap in his pajamas and submitted to the type of discipline no kid in the world ever wants to face. Four long years had passed since the last time Lucas been in that painful, humbling and very humiliating position, four blessed years during which a beanbag, school books and clothes had quietly overtaken The Corner, providing confidence to the son in question that he was officially grown up now, too old, too big, too mature for that kind of punishment. Now – suddenly – his mom didn't think so. Now, because he'd done something semi-bad to right a wrong caused by his stupid and selfish half-brother, he was supposed to march his ass home, then clear away everything from that damn corner, so he could stand in it once again with a red-hot face and a soon-to-be hotter butt tingling in disgrace.

This couldn't be happening again.

Damn it, he must have heard his mom wrong. Please God, let him have heard her wrong!

"The corner?" Luke repeated after a very panicked moment. "_My God, Mom, did you say the corner?"_

"Yes, the corner."

"But-But that means you're gonna—"

"Spank you? Yes, that's exactly what I mean to do."

Where he sat, a blushing Keith was obviously embarrassed for his nephew, but while he seemed too uncomfortable to speak, Lucas didn't have that problem. The teenager raced around the counter to confront his one, true parent and clutched at her shoulders.

"Please, Mom, _please_. Anything but that! I'm sixteen! You haven't done ... done _that _since I was—"

"Twelve. I know. I was there," Karen said, gently but firmly removed herself from her son's sweaty grip. "I don't need to be reminded."

Lucas glared down at her a moment then shoved an empty coffee cup off the counter so it shattered on the floor. "Well, obviously you do, Mom! What're you thinking? I'm too old for spanking at my age!"

Karen jumped slightly but that was all. She refused to raise her voice. "Are you trying to make things worse for yourself?"

In desperation, Lucas whirled on the only other family in the room. "For God's sake, talk to her, Uncle Keith! Please! She can't spank me now! It's not right! _Please!"_

Keith looked at the sister-in-law he had always secretly loved and opened his mouth.

Then he shut it.

He stared down at this hands and shifted his weight on the stool before slowing raising his eyes to meet his nephew's. "Luke ... I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry! Just—"

"No, Luke, I can't interfere. _That_ wouldn't be right. Karen's your mom and she's the one raising you."

"You help too! You help all the time! You're like my dad!"

"I'm glad you feel that way – I do too – but the fact is ..." Keith took a deep breath then let it out in stages, his heart breaking a little as it always did each time he was forced to state the truth. "The fact is ... I'm not your dad and I have no legal rights over you no matter how much I love you and no matter how often I stand in for Dan sometimes."

"But—"

"No, Luke. Your mom and your mom alone gets the final decision on how to punish you when you mess up, and you really _did_ mess up this time, kiddo. You know you did. I know it, you know it and your mom knows it too." Keith shifted his gaze to settle on Karen. "And because I respect her so much I will support her 100% ... even if I completely disagree right now with what she's decided."

"See?" Lucas exclaimed, jumping on his uncle's last words. "See, Mom? Even Keith thinks you're being unreasonable! I'm a junior in high school, for crying out loud! That's way too old for spanking, don't you think?!"

"Lucas—"

"This is totally unfair, Mom! I'm the good son! Nathan's the one who caused all this and he's not getting punished! Why do I have to? I bet he's never gotten spanked once his whole life!"

"And it shows," Keith snorted, "believe me."

Lucas didn't want to hear that, especially not from the so-called uncle who refused to step up and put a stop to his madness. He scowled at Keith then quickly ignored the man in favor of his mother.

"C'mon, Mom. Don't do this to me. I'm _begging_ you." When Karen didn't reply and simply began to walk past him with quiet purpose, Lucas followed close on her heels. "Mom! Come _on_, Mom, please! Nathan walked _away_ from the crash he caused. I _stayed!_ I-I left a note for the car he hit and I-I towed Peyton's car to the garage so me and Keith could fix it and—"

"And that's not how I raised you," Karen interrupted. "I didn't raise you to circumvent the law, Lucas. You witnessed a hit and run and you didn't report it. And not only didn't you report it, you actually hid what really happened."

"It wasn't like that, Mom!"

"Wasn't it? On that note you left for the owner of the car Nathan hit who did you say caused that accident?"

"I say I did it, but—"

"Exactly and you didn't. What Nathan did was wrong, but what you did was hardly the right thing to do either." Karen stopped by the front door of the café to face her son, her tone gentle but still firm. "You know that and I know that because you told me so five days ago when I first confronted you."

"But—"

"Lucas, you know exactly what you should have done instead, so don't try and convince me now that you didn't. That would be lying and I won't have it. Not from you and not over something as serious as this. Do I make myself clear?"

Luke's eyes began to fill. His mom wasn't going to change her mind; he knew that now. He stuffed his hands in his front pockets, his shoulders hunched as he glanced behind him to ensure Keith hadn't moved. When he turned back to Karen, he ducked his chin and kept his voice low, too low at first for anyone but mother and son to hear. "Please, Mama. I'm sorry. I _am_. Just please don't punish me this way. Nathan ... He ..."

"What about him?"

"His life is so easy ... He gets away with everything ... Why can't I this once...?"

A prickling was beginning behind her own eyes, but Karen blinked fast to keep it at bay. She reached up to cup Luke's face instead, forcing him to raise his head a bit and look at her properly. "You know something, baby boy? Practically every day now since you made the team someone stops me on the street or comes into this shop specifically to tell me what a great kid you are and how proud I should be as your mother. And I am proud. You know that. I love you beyond words and I've always been proud of you. But what made you into the exceptional young man you are today is not your talent for basketball and it's definitely not me turning a blind eye to your mistakes like Dan and Deb have done with Nathan."

"I _understand_ that, Ma—"

"Do you? Because I truly believe what separates you from Nathan is the discipline I've given you consistently since you were old enough to start learning right from wrong."

"It _is_ but—"

"It's also the fact that Dan is not in our lives and that I love you far more than he ever could."

"I get it, Mom, I do, but please just reconsi—"

"No, Lucas. I can't. I am sorry for you that Nathan is getting away with what he did because you're right. It isn't fair. He's your brother and you both should be treated the same when you screw up big. But the thing is ... there is absolutely nothing I can do about that. Nathan is not my son and he is not living under my roof; you are and it's my job to make sure you will never be anything like he is."

"I'm not, Mom. I won't ever be like Nathan; I promise."

Karen covered his mouth. "That's right, honey. You won't. You will never be so selfish or spoiled or inconsiderate, and you will never again do something illegal if I can help it. I love you too much to allow it." Hardening her heart, Karen removed her hand from Luke's face and opened the coffee shop's front door for her son. "Go home now like I told you and wait for me in your room. I'll be there in an hour with the hairbrush and I expect you to be ready for bed."

Lucas stayed where he was and gazed at her pathetically a moment, begging her silently to take it back. When she wouldn't, his shoulders slumped. "But ... I don't wear pajamas to bed any more, Ma. I just ... I just wear my boxer briefs ..."

Karen held the door wider and tipped her head toward the sidewalk. "Then you'll stand in the corner and wait for me in your boxer briefs, won't you?"

Lucas couldn't speak past the lump in his throat or the knot in his gut. He couldn't look at his mother any more and he definitely couldn't look back at his uncle, who had overheard everything his mom just said to him and knew exactly where Luke would be and what would be happening to him sixty minutes from now.

As slowly as he dared, Luke trudged home.

He was glad it was dark. He stayed in the shadows and kept his trembling chin on his chest with each heavy step, praying that he met no one on the streets that he knew. He didn't have time to stop and chat with anyone, and he didn't want to besides. They would see that something was wrong with him the second they looked into his face, and he would never be able to explain to them why he was so upset, that he was actually taking a gallows walk home because he'd been a bad boy and was in for a spanking from his mommy.

Not from his daddy, of course.

Never him.

The sudden thought of Dan Scott and his one cherished son, Nathan, sustained Lucas for awhile, fueling an anger and a jealousy deep within that burned for blocks and made the tiresome trip home on foot seem shorter than it was in retrospect. But climbing the porch steps to the house he shared with his mother drove Lucas straight back to the present.

He forgot Dan Scott.

He forgot Nathan Scott.

As he dug his keys out of his back pocket, the only Scott on his mind was himself.

He unlocked the door and let himself in, but turned on no lights except the one in his room. There, he stripped down to his underwear in sulky silence, knowing he'd better be ready when his mom came home. After he undressed, he emptied the northeast corner in his room of all the junk that had accumulated over the years, kicking it here and shoving it there until three square free of space had been cleared and he was sweaty from exertion.

Then he took its place.

A short time later he heard his mom come home, but he knew she wouldn't come deal with him yet. He hadn't been in the corner long enough. According to her rules, he had to reflect a good long while on why he was in this position again, and why she hadn't chosen to ground him this time, or take away privileges, or hand down any number of lesser punishments. Instead, she had chosen to spank his teenaged behind, knowing full well how much he would hate it. But there was a good reason behind her decision. There always was. Sometimes it was hard for a boy to figure out that reason while facing a wall half-naked in his bedroom, but that made no difference to Karen Roe. However hard it was and however long it took, it was still Luke's responsibility at this point to understand her chosen method of punishment and then to accept it. Until he did, she would keep him in this corner.

For awhile, Luke tried to hate her for treating him like he was twelve again and shoplifting on dares, but his mind kept drifting to his half-brother instead and to that smug look Nathan had worn the night he had walked away from the crash. Lucas balled his fists now at his side, his butt cheeks clenching in time with his jaw as he let himself harp on Nathan and how it should be _him_ in this stupid corner about to get his ass whacked hard by a parent.

_He_ was the brother who deserved a spanking.

_He_ was the one who had taken his eyes off the road and scraped carelessly into a parked car.

And then _he_ was the one who had crashed Peyton's Mercury Comet into a light pole.

He had basically told Lucas to shove it while he sauntered away from it all like a hit and run was of no consequence in his pampered little world, so he was _also_ the one who hadn't even thought to call the cops to confess what he'd done. Lucas was the one who had raised the need to report the accident to the police ...

... but then ...

... but then he hadn't actually done it in the end, had he?

Which was worse?

Being spoiled so rotten your whole life that you didn't even care when you were committing a crime?

Or witnessing a crime but ignoring your conscience on purpose just so you can break the law a little more for your own gain?

Lucas knew that, if truth be told, he had basically done the latter. He could try and fool himself into believing his actions had been strictly noble, that he had wanted only to save Peyton the hassle in court she would have faced trying to prove she had never driven her car on that day at that hour, but then he would pretty much be lying. The truth was he had seen an opportunity to impress Peyton and he had seized it despite knowing full well that it was wrong, that his uncle was not nearly rich enough to give away parts and labor for free, and that he was lying to that man on whose car he left a note taking responsibility. He hadn't done Nathan any favors either, getting him out of a jam like the greatDan Scott had always done before. Maybe Uncle Keith had fixed that in a way by reporting the truth to Nathan's parents so _someone_ in that family had to pay the damages out of their own pocket, but that didn't excuse what Lucas himself had done on his own out of selfishness.

But still_ ... a spanking?_

Wasn't there some other way for his mom to lay down the law? Wasn't there something else she could do to him to make him feel punished? Like maybe have him work for free for awhile?

No, wait, that wouldn't work. Repairing the two damaged cars wouldn't teach him anything new, since he'd been planning to do that all along. Grounding him for far longer than usual probably wouldn't make things right either. Even while he tackled the extra chores his mom always gave him to do whenever he was confined to the house, all those nights and weekends home alone would only give him more time to fantasize about Peyton and think up ways to improve their relationship. Going to the police now was also pretty pointless. It was way too little far too late.

So what other punishment did that leave his mom to hand down?

In the corner, Lucas hashed and rehashed these thoughts and kept asking himself that question over and over and over again, but the answer that always came to him never wavered. Gradually –very gradually – his fists unclenched. Soon afterwards, he hung his head.

In the doorway and observing her son quietly for the last few minutes, Karen saw that he was finally ready. She cleared her throat to signal her presence as she had done the last time they had been in this situation and then she entered his room, walking straight to his bed and taking a seat on the side.

"You may step out of the corner now."

Lucas didn't move. For a moment, Karen wondered if she might have been wrong in assuming he was ready and if he would force her to fetch him herself, but then abruptly, he turned to her and came forward, his cheekbones high with color. Once he was by her side, Karen waited for him to get in position. When he didn't, she gestured with the hairbrush for him to lay across her knees.

"Over my lap, please."

"Mom ... uh ... no."

"Excuse me?"

Luke crossed his arms over his naked chest and fidgeted. "I can't. I mean ... I don't think I should." As Karen's face grew much more stern than Lucas had ever seen it, the teenager swallowed hard and knew he'd better explain. "I'm not disobeying you, Mom, I swear. I just ... don't you want me to ... I mean I'm taller now, Mama ... I could just bend over my desk or I could—"

"No. I want you over my lap the way we've always done this in the past."

"But—"

"This is not a negotiation, Lucas. This is a punishment. Now are you going to do as I say, or am I going to have to take your briefs down before I spank you?"

This was it then, the moment of truth.

Mother or not, Karen could only spank Lucas at this point if he let her, if he respected her authority enough to accept her decision to discipline him in this way. Certainly, if he decided to resist her, as tall and muscular as he was now, there was little she could do to force him. There was also no question that Nathan Scott would have cut and run long before this point, so might Lucas do the same?

Karen looked up into her son's face and was gratified to see that no, he would not. He honestly had no plans to. Yes, he was deeply unhappy at the prospect of being spanked and over her lap no less at his current age – that much was obvious from his hesitation and the silent pleas coming from his eyes – but he was going to take what he had coming however long Karen dished it out. As she had stated so confidently in the café, her son was not Deb's. He had proven it the moment he made his way home, removed his clothes then stood in the corner as ordered, and now he was proving it yet again.

Lucas let his arms drop and bent over.

Just before Karen would have reached for his boxer briefs and lowered them without hesitation, Luke set his jaw but leaned down and stretched out over her knees in silence, his palms braced flat against the floor by his night-table while his bare toes pressed into the carpet several feet behind him. Thanks to his current weight and height, this position was both awkward and uncomfortable for both mother and son, but Karen refused to change it. Lucas had acted rashly and selfishly by aiding Nathan in covering up his hit and run, which meant he had thought and behaved exactly like a child would. Because of this it was only fitting that he be punished like a little boy in a spanking position that reinforced his status as her child, and to underline this point, Karen promptly set aside the hairbrush she'd brought with her and slapped his cotton-covered bottom hard with the palm of her hand.

Over her lap, Luke jumped a little but bit his lower lip and said nothing. A second spank followed, and then a third, and then his mom really seemed to hit her stride, loosing sharp, shameful slaps that echoed noisily around the room with no other sound to challenge them. The first dozen fell and then the second, and Lucas waited then hoped then prayed for a variation or a pattern to set in, but there was none. His mom did not change the tempo of her swats nor did she spread them out so the sting was diffused. The only place she slapped him was on his sit spots, so by the end of the fourth minute, Lucas was hissing and his feet keep wanting to leave the floor, to let out little kicks to help mitigate the burn.

He couldn't believe his mom was making such a painful impression using only her hand, but more than that, he couldn't believe the pressure that was building behind his eyes as a result, the growing need to whine and sniffle and throw a hand back to try and protect his bottom from the next blistering spank. He grimaced and bit his lower lip harder, trying to focus on the rug beneath his face and the stains four inches below his nose from that can of soda he'd spilled weeks ago and never fully mopped up, but nothing he did worked. It was so hard to concentrate, to focus on anything outside of the agony mounting in his rear end. Those stains on the carpet didn't make sense anyway; they were distracting him and not in a good way. How could it be that the longer his mom spanked him, the wider those stains seemed to grow? They had dried ages ago. How could they be merging?

As the truth of the matter suddenly hit, Lucas let out a sniffle that immediately turned into a whimper. That turned into a sob which soon escalated into a blubber and soon after that he was full on crying. Why hold back any more? He had already started. It was the tears falling from _his_ eyes that were creating a new pool on the carpet below. It wasn't a weird mirage, or a trick of the mind, or some strange chemical reaction that was allowing dried soda to suddenly liquefy without warning.

He, Lucas Eugene Scott, was crying.

And he was crying from the spanking.

Above him, Karen briefly considered putting a halt to her boy's punishment as she had done when he was twelve and the sobs coming from within had turned genuine, but this time she knew she couldn't stop just yet. Lucas wasn't a pre-teenager any more. He wasn't falling for a silly dare, swiping a 50¢candy bar from the corner store down the road. He was sixteen years old, soon to be seventeen, and his crime last week had been much more serious. What he had done this time could have actually resulted in an arrest warrant as well as a criminal record, both of which might have completely overshadowed his future. A simple hand spanking wasn't nearly enough to cover that, Karen knew, so without further delay, she switched to the hairbrush as she began to lecture.

Right way, Lucas began to buck and beg, his cries rising more than a full notch.

"Ahhh! No-o, Mama! Please!"

"The next time you witness a crime, young man, you call the police. You call the police, do you hear me? You don't hesitate. You call the police."

"Y-Ye-esss, Mama! I wi-ill! Please! Owwwww!"

"What you _don't_ do is take responsibility for someone else's mistake just because the victim is a girl you like."

"Okay! All right! I'm s-sorry, Ma! I w-won't! I'm sorry, Ma! I'm s-sorry!"

"And if the perpetrator is your brother, Nathan, so be it. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Ma, ye-essss! Please! Stop! OWWWWW!"

"Nathan has never once been held accountable for the things he's done wrong all his life. I think it's about time he was, don't you?" When Lucas could only nod his head this time and bawl into the carpet, Karen walloped her son another ten times to be certain the message had truly sunk in, and then she set aside the brush. She patted Luke's heaving back. "All right, all 's enough now, honey. We're done."

Lucas couldn't have been more relieved, but he also couldn't bring himself to get up or to stop crying. He managed to throw a hand back to try and rub the unrelenting ache from his backside, but he absolutely did not want to stand up or face his mom. He was too ashamed: ashamed of the fact that he'd just been punished by her with a spanking and ashamed of all the noise he couldn't seem to help making, that at the advanced age of sixteen she could still bring him to tears with only a few systematic whacks to the ass. Most of all, though, he was ashamed of himself for disappointing her this much and giving her cause to believe he actually needed that spanking to keep from turning into his half-brother. He would never do that to her, or to his Uncle Keith, or even to himself for that matter, but he had obviously behaved badly enough to have her thinking otherwise, to have her doubting her parenting skills. That had to change. He hated having his mom worry needlessly about him.

And he definitely didn't want to _ever_ earn another spanking like this one.

He also couldn't stay where he was forever, though, so after another minute or two of feeling sorry for himself, Lucas ordered himself to quit slobbering and man up. More even than the pain, this had always been the worst part of getting spanked for him, the having to face his mom afterwards with tear tracks on his cheeks and a behind that just wouldn't quit burning. But it had to be done and he had to apologize. It was another of his mom's rules. There was simply no way around it.

He drew a shuddering breath, cut the crying, and used one arm to wipe away the moisture beading his face. After that, he forced himself to stand. When he was on his feet, he looked down at his mother and tried to resist the urge to keep dousing the fire she had lit behind him, but like always, he failed.

"Mom, I..." It was hard making eye contact with her while he sulked and rubbed his bottom like a little kid, but he did the best he could. "Mom, I'm sorry ... I know you didn't give me more than I deserved ... but I just ... I'm just sorry I acted in a way that made you have to punish me at all."

Tired as she was, Karen nevertheless drew herself up a little and nodded. "I hope that's true, Lucas, because I won't hesitate to take us here again if you make me."

"You won't, Mom. I promise."

For almost a minute, Karen sat where she was and said nothing more. She looked up at her baby soberly and saw a little boy who was still hurting in more ways than one from the discipline she had had to give him. But, the longer she looked the more she also saw a definite glimmer of the man Lucas would someday become, the one she was doing her level best to raise him to be.

She smiled then, stood up and pulled him into a forgiving hug before letting him go and guiding him straight into bed. Once Lucas was on his stomach and clutching his pillow, she tucked him in close, turned off his lamp, then sat beside him in the dark in silence, her hand once again reaching out to stroke his hair and to rub a pattern on his back that conveyed without words just how much she loved him.

And as the minutes passed and Luke's breathing gradually deepened, Karen thought of his father, Dan Scott.

This post-spanking ritual she and Lucas had just shared – and the spanking itself for that matter – were all things Dan could have done himself if he had been man enough to stick around all those years ago. But he had left her and Lucas in order to make another family of his own that he could manipulate, bully and control, and so she was raising Lucas away from him, mostly alone.

And she _would_ keep on doing it the only way she knew how.

She would do it and make sure her son was the better man for it, better than his biological father had ever been, and definitely better than Nathan, who was clearly following in Dan's footsteps. Not ever would she allow her baby boy turn into his selfish half-brother. And someday Dan would know what he had missed by not choosing them over Deb and Nate. He would know it and he would regret it.

She lived for that day.


End file.
